 Prison Journal of Stefan F. Austin, 1833-1835, Part 1, from the Texas Historical Association Quarterly, Volume 2, Number 3, January 1899. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Prison Journal of Stefan F. Austin. This hitherto unpublished private diary appears in the quarterly by the kind permission of Colonel Guy M. Bryan, who, as all old Texans know, is a nephew of Stefan F. Austin. It follows closely a copy in possession of Colonel Bryan, made by his brother, Moses Austin Bryan, from the original, which was written by Austin in pencil in a small blank book that he managed to conceal when he was searched at the time of his incarceration. The matter at the end refers to a project which Austin succeeded in accomplishing while he was in Mexico, and which was, in fact, the establishment of the first public mail route between the Mexican Republic and the United States. This matter is written without a date on the back of the last page of the copy. Colonel Bryan says that Austin's criticism of the Catholic Church should be taken as referring not to the Church in general, but to the form of Catholicism then prevailing in Mexico. The italicized title given below is written in ink on the cover of the manuscript, except the explanatory words, quote, private, end quote, and quote, before confinement, and end quote, which were added by Colonel Bryan. Under this title on the manuscript are penciled the words, quote, three months in the ex-inquisition and not allowed to speak to anyone, one year in the prison of the Accordada, and the balance of the time with the city of Mexico for his limits, under bond, and was finally released without trial under a general amnesty law passed by the Congress, end quote. This title and the penciled edition would appear to be original with Moses Austin Bryan. Private diary of General S. F. Austin, before confinement and while confined in the ex-inquisition, city of Mexico, 1833 and 1834 and 1835. I left Mexico on the 10th December, 1833, in a coach in company with Don Luis de la Rosa, deputy in the General Congress, Don Octavian de la Rosa, and Don Miguel Ortega. The first day at the Pantla, five leagues, December 11th, that we with Toca, 12 leagues, December 12th, Tula, 12 leagues, December 13th, Arroyo Seco, 13 leagues, December 14th, San Juan de Rio, 14 leagues. San Juan de Rio, very long street, Don Luis and myself went to take a walk. Everything was dull, a church built in 1683 with a new front of the Corinthian order at the expense, as the Padre told us, of a famous robber and assassin who had been the terror of the country. He was taken at last. He employed the money which he had robbed in building the front of the church. He received civil pardon and spiritual absolution and went to heaven, so said the Padre, and he knew, because the tradition was not old, about 50 years. December 15th, a caretoro, 14 leagues, a city of convents and churches, with some very good private houses. The convent of Santa Clara for nuns is the largest it is said in the republic and the richest. The inside of the church is excessively loaded with costly ornaments. All of the most ancient Gothic style were the emblem of such a monster of the past century. One is astonished at seeing these monuments of the barbarity and ignorance of the 10th and 12th centuries preserved with so much care in the 19th century and in every republic. Merry women with God, how ridiculous, to break the commandment of God himself and to go contrary to his intent in creating women in order to please God in consequence. December 16th, we remained at caretoro. We visited the convent. These are many and very large. In that of, blank, cruise, there is a large orchard well watered. It has a large fountain constructed by a marquee who has perpetuated his fame and piety by a statue of himself of his own size which stands in the center of the fountain on a base of stone. He is habited in the old fashion. There are extensive baths, convenient to the fountain, constructed by the same marquee. How much sweat and tears from the Indian slaves must the money have cost which the marquee employed in the construction of this fountain and baths. But he received absolution from the monks and went to heaven. In the orchard there are many very pretty cypress trees. I collected seeds from them to carry to Texas. They showed me some of these trees planted by the hands of the Reverend Father Morphet who had been a monk in this convent and a missionary at Nagadoches in Texas. This monk is very famous, for he had been a second Moses. At Nagadoches all the springs went dry and he went out with images of the saints and necessary apparatus to perform miracles. He struck a blow with a rod of iron on a rock which stands on the bank of the creek Vanana in Nagadoches and immediately a stream of water gushed out sufficient to supply the inhabitants with water to drink. This miracle was canonized in Rome and a print or engraving of the fact was made in order to perpetuate it. This same Padre when he left Nagadoches for Beixar lost a baggage mule which a tiger killed and in the morning as soon as the Padre knew it he made the tiger come and kneel at his feet and then he was harnessed and loaded with the baggage of the dead mule which he carried to Beixar and then having received a pardon for having killed the mule was sent back to the desert. Now this is true because several old women told it to me in Nagadoches and Beixar and we ought not to suppose that Rome would order an engraving to be made of a miracle of the water only to deceive credulous people. In Chérétaro the sweet potatoes are very rich, the best I have ever tasted. Sweet meats are very good and exceedingly cheap. In the convent of Santa Clara are sold large quantities of sweet meats of infinite kinds and qualities. Ah woman, what inadequate shadows are these sweet meats made by that hands compared to the tranquil pleasure which ye ought to dispense by occupying that rank in society and in the world which God of nature gave ye and which the barbarous and avaricious cunning of Rome has deprived ye. This city is very well supplied with water of good quality brought by an aqueduct from the mountain in front of the city. It passes a valley on arches which are very well constructed and are about sixty or seventy feet high. The aqueduct is about half a league long. It is a useful work worthy of Paris or any city in the world. In the public square there is a large fountain of hewn stone, very convenient and beautiful. The water rises to the second story in the houses situated in the lowest part of the town. There is a story respecting this work which has been affirmed to me as correct, that two rich men in a moment of conviviality speaking of the practicability of bringing water from the mountain in front, one said that it was practicable and the other affirmed that it was impossible, and offered to build a fountain in the public square of solid gold if the other would bring the water. Upon this the first admitted the challenge and they both mutually obligated themselves to the execution by an act legally passed. He that offered to bring the water completed the work and made the aqueduct and arches above mentioned, but he spent his fortune and ruined himself. The other then refused to make the fountain of gold. A lawsuit was commenced, and in fine he was compelled to make it of hewn stone and to conduct the water through all the streets of the city in which he also expended his fortune and ruined himself. In this case wine rendered a very great service to the human race because it caused these two rich men to employ their fortunes for the benefit of the people instead of giving them as very probably they would have done to convince. The streets of Queretoro are irregular of various width and crooked or serpentine. It is situated on the side of a hill. The potatoes of this place are famed for their sweetness. When roasted they appear to be sweet meats. If it were practicable as is said to open a road for carriages from this city to the head of navigation Panuco River it would increase very fast and in a little time would be opulent modernized and free from prejudice. Because it would be the depot for all the Bajil and a great commerce would be carried on in domestic and foreign produce. It would be in fine the center of commerce of a fertile and extensive territory. After that various manufactures could be established here to great advantage by making use of the convents for that purpose and by giving employment to many vicious inhabitants who now appear to live God knows how as they have no ostensible occupation. The tavern at which we stayed in front of the convent of Santa Clara is a very large and well built house of two stories. It is very convenient having a fountain of water warm and cold baths very good rooms but without a single bedstead or cot. All the furniture of one of the best rooms consisted of two or three common chairs and a very ill made table. It is said that the stage company of Mexico is endeavoring to purchase the house for a tavern and will furnish it after civilized fashion 17 December 14 leagues to Celaya a town of about 4000 inhabitants. The public square is surrounded by arches as is the case in most of the towns of the Bajillo. It contains some very good buildings of hewn stone. The church of the convent of the Carmelite monks is exceedingly magnificent of modern construction. The interior is adorned with Ionic columns and not so loaded with ornaments and statues as the Gothic churches but much more handsome and agreeable to the eye. The architect was an Indian a native of the place who died in August of the cholera. He studied architecture by himself and made his own models of wood. He had great natural talent and his death is a loss to his country. How many other Indians would there be of as much or even more talent if their education were cultivated? The convent is large, very well built, 160 years old, rich in estates and rents. It has two monks. There is also a very large convent of San Francisco. We went in and walked all over the building without seeing a single soul. It contains two or three friars. There are accommodations for more than 200. There is also a large convent of San Agustin well constructed. The Indian architect who built the church in the convent of the Carmelite was erecting a new steeple for the church of this convent of a new or mixed architecture different from any that I have seen before after his own ideas. He had it half finished when he died. Besides these convents there is several chapels and a parochial church. If all this money had been employed in opening a carriage road from Querétaro to the river Panuco, how different would have been the situation of the Bajio with respect to its commerce and improvements? What a pity that Rome did not sit down as a dogma that the man who should leave his property to open roads, canals, to establish schools, foment agriculture and the arts should go straight to heaven as soon as dead. The Mohammedans were conquerors and desolators by a paragraph of the Koran. Rome could have made the Catholics the civilizers and patrons of the arts with the same facility. All that was wanting was an edict of the Council of Trent or of any other council or a bull of the Pope. That dusk, Don Miguel suddenly entered the room and told us that the robbers were scheming with the coachman to rob us on the following day. All the company became alarmed and Don Luis determined to go to the political chief and ask him for an escort. I was opposed to it. I did not believe the story about the robbers. They replied that I was not acquainted with the country or the people that it was full of robbers. I said that it appeared impossible that there should be so many robbers in a country that abounded so much in churches. Ah, my friend said, D, these churches have only served to demoralize the people. And for this, parents have broken the ties of nature and trampled on the most amiable and delicate sentiments of humanity and civilization, disinheriting their children in order to construct convents and churches that only served to demoralize and corrupt the people. And with all this, there are Mexicans who desire to perpetuate this monster, the influence and power of the clergy. Even the late administration of Bustamante was desirous of governing the nation by the mitre and monastic superstition, credulity and ignorance instead of governing by intelligence and common sense. Don Luis went to see the political chief and agreed with him for an escort of one sergeant and five militia at, blank, realls a day, for each man, and on the following day we set out in great state, coach and six soldiers on horseback as an escort with their lances and red flags. 18 December 1833, twelve leagues to Salamanca, we arrived early and went to visit the convent of the Augustinos, a very large building of very solid construction of stone and mortar. It occupies a whole block on the public square and has behind it the river Salamanca at two hundred paces distant. The building, including the church, has 156 varres in length and 135 in width and has two courtyards. The first has portals on the four sides, sustained by very solid pillars of stone well cut, joined together by arches, under each one of which there is a large painting or picture representing some miracle or passage in the life of San Agustin. The edifice is two stories high, the other courtyard is very large and gives light to the cells of the friars that surround it. This enormous building is abandoned for there are only two monks who occupy a room in the large courtyard in the first story. In the second there is not a single soul, the whole republic is full of these edifices and many of the best plantation lands and an innumerable quantity of houses and even palaces in the cities belong to these monuments of ignorance of the past generation and of the cunning and avarice of Rome. It appears incredible that it is possible for mankind to have been so deceived to such a pitch as to make them believe that they could purge themselves of the sins of this life by giving their wealth and property to maintain a set of monks in idleness and every kind of immorality and even of crime which was committed under the cloak of religion. Parents have left their children in want and misery in order to give their riches to friars to fatten on in their wickedness, while the sons being thus robbed of their inheritance have given themselves up to vice and probably to robbery in order to live receiving absolution from the same monks that enjoyed their inheritance. Rome, Rome, until the Mexican people shake off thy superstitions and wicked sects they can neither be a republican nor a moral people. 19th December to Sillao, 14 leagues, 20th December to León, 15 leagues. The Pajio, a great valley which extends from Querétaro to Lagos about 100 leagues long and from 10 to 12 wide. It contains the towns of Sillao, Salamanca, Sillao, León, Lagos, and several villages. The city of Guanajuato is on the mountain five leagues from Sillao. This valley is excessively fertile and sufficiently populated. It has a dull aspect because its natural beauty and fertility is not attested by industry and art. It abounds in churches and convents, and in times gone by in friars, the most of whom have disappeared in the political revolutions, leaving the people heirs to their idle superstitions and corrupt habits. There are a great many robbers. In the Pajio, the labors of the fields and factories are done principally by the Indians. The character and natural disposition of this people appear to be very good. They are industrious, humble, patient, and docile. They speak in their native or original language and still preserve some of their ancient customs. They also speak in Spanish, badly, however, and have acquired some modern habits, but not of the best kind. They are very fanatical and superstitious. As regards this subject, perhaps the only change that they have undergone is from the adoration of coarse and ugly images of stone to that of pretty, well-made images of wood, richly clad. It is difficult to say whether they belong to the past or present times. They may be called shades of antiquity with some modern spots. They are naturally well-disposed and talented, and if their education were cultivated, they would undoubtedly be equal to the whites, more docile and very good citizens. The great mass of the Mexican Republic is composed of this class. They are not at this time capable of governing themselves and consequently badly prepared to become Republicans. In fine, most of their customs and ideas are repugnant to the principles of the system adopted by the nation. This is a very great evil, which has to be remedied before the Republic may be said to be solidly established, because this form of governments has to be blank and sustained by the general goodwill and opinion. But if there be no will or opinion permanent and established, how is the evil to be cured? By education and example, the first by well-regulated schools, and the second by means of foreign population engrafted, thus combining everything which is most essential to instruct, that is theory and example, the substantial and palpable practice of virtues of industry and of habits, civilized, useful, and Republican. Stages might be established by appropriating the property of the clergy, an example might be obtained by the emigration of foreigners, increasing at the same time the population and wealth and wealth of the Republic. Therefore the two cardinal points on which the government should fix their attention are education and emigration. Already, stages and taverns have been established between Veracruz and Mexico by foreigners. This has been a kind of school in as much as the Mexicans have learned by example the manner and the advantages. The result is that they are going to run stages by Mexicans from Mexico to Zacatecas and San Luis, and so progressing throughout the whole country where the roads are passable, establishing also taverns at convenient points. This is a very great step towards civilizing the country and uniting the states with each other, because when transportation is easy, there will be frequent communication and intercourse of interests and friendship between remote points, which will be so many other links to cement the union. There is a very great obstacle to any system of education or of emigration, which has to be removed before much progress can be made by this means, which is religious intolerance. This restricts the sphere of education and tends to perpetuate superstitious customs and ideas on one side and prevents foreign emigration on the other, and it has to be during the existence of an insurmountable counter-poise which debilitates the march of the nation in improvements if it does not entirely blank it. In this town, León, there are factories of saddlery and tanneries. There are also some of cotton cloth of a coarse kind. Whence comes the cotton? Will it be credited that it comes from Coahuila and even from Texas by way of San Luis Potosí and Tampico? Nevertheless, thus it is. There is no part of the Republic nor can there be of the world more adapted to the cultivation of cotton than the Bajío. The planters could raise it for $3 per cubic weight, free from seed and of a superior quality. But in place of this it is purchased in distant countries from $7 to $10 a hundred. Texas, which ten years since was a wilderness inhabited only by savages, now supplies the Bajío with cotton about 400 leagues distant, a country naturally more fertile and a better climate for cotton than Texas, where it has been possible to expend innumerable millions of dollars in the fabrication of wonderful edifices for the clergy, but not a dollar for public education, or for the fomentation of agriculture, arts, and manufactures. There is a school or college recently established here which promises well. There is a castle or tower constructed by Agustín de Iturbide in the year 1815, at that time commander general under the government of the king. The object of the castle was to defend the town from the insurgents. It appears to me that it is entirely useless as a defense for the town from attacks from outside, but it is sufficient to hold the town in awe and subjection. There are many rumors of robbers, so that Don Luis is determined to have as far as logos the same escort that we brought from Seleya. The escort is composed of militia who are paid 13 riales for each man daily. What a sad and pitiable condition of the most fertile, lovely, and populated part of the Republic where travelers may not journey with safety without an escort of armed men. The people of León appear very bigoted, no cheerfulness or sociability. Every house appears to be a convent. Their extreme devotion caused me to remark to Don Luis, is it possible that robbers can exist in the midst of so much piety? Ah, my friend, he replied, this piety is one of the cloaks tainted with corruption that we have inherited from the Spaniards. This manifest superstition is a cloak that we have to shake off before we can make any rapid progress in improvement. 21st December 1833 To Lagos, 12 Leagues This town is situated upon a rivulet near which are some lakes from which it derives its name. It is near the foot of the mountain, and here terminates the Bajil. The lands in the vicinity are very fertile. The church is the highest I have seen of Arabic Gothic architecture. It contains a convent of capuchin nuns and order more rigid than any other. Don Luis related to me a sad story of a pretty girl that took the veil when very young. It appears to me that man must cease to be man to approve of these prisons, where the most precious part of the works of the Almighty are incarcerated. All the Bajil has just suffered two great calamities, civil war and the cholera morbis. In some places one half of the population are said to have died. The road from Querétaro is excellent, very level, and but few stones except on a hill this side of León. The fort called Sombrero, so renowned in the Revolutionary War, is situated between León and Lagos on a little round hill on the left of the road. The fort of San Gregorio may also be seen from León on the left of the road, more distant than the other. The great obstacle to the improvement of the interior of the Republic is the want of roads to transport produce to the coast for exportation. But it appears to me that this obstacle may in a great measure be removed, at least so far as regards the Bajil. I have already said that the country is level as far as Querétaro, and I understand that from Querétaro it is not difficult to open a carriage road to the last navigable point of the river Panuco, which disembarks at Tampico. If this be true, it is clear that the obstacle is not insurmountable. With capitalists and enterprising men, this obstacle would in a very little time be removed. And then the Bajil, instead of receiving cotton from Texas, would export large quantities to Europe, as also sugar, and would supply the coast with wheat and other grain. A country without any other exports than gold and silver can never be anything else than dependent on other nations, without advancing in agriculture any more than what may be necessary for home consumption. Such a country, in fine, is nothing but a nation of miners, getting out gold to enrich foreign nations. Mr. Lagos, Don Luis met his friends who had brought a coach for him from Aguas Calientes, and on the twenty-second I took leave of this good friend and virtuous, intelligent patriot. He is one of the most philanthropical men, and the greatest enthusiast for the welfare and felicity of his country that I have known, and the most disinterested and industrious. On the twenty-second December, fifteen leagues to Matanzas, alone with my servant I took the road to San Luis Potosí, and expected to overtake there General Pedro Lemus, Commander General of the Internal States of the East, who was going to Monterey. It was my intention to go by Sienaga de Matapara in order to purchase a good horse of those raised at that place, which I said to be of the best kind in the Republic. But on arriving at the Hacienda, called Estancias Grande, I abandoned the idea, as it was so much out of the way, and having remained a short time at Estancias, I passed the night at Matanzas, very fatigued, as it was the first day, since the month of May, that I had been on horseback. The general aspect of the country today was mountainous and sterile, nothing of much interest. Twenty-third, I slept at Gallina, sixteen leagues, a Hacienda belonging to the Marquis del Haral. It did not appear to me very fertile, more adapted to raising stock than for farming purposes. December 24, 1833. I arrived at San Luis, fifteen leagues from, blank, of Gallina, a little after sunset, and stopped at the tavern de San Antonio, where I met Mr. Maurice Hebenstrich, a merchant from Maramoros. I arrived very tired, but less than the former day, rather worse for a bad headache. Twenty-fifth, I remained in San Luis Potosí. Mr. Oregas, a partner of Dalles, came to see me, also Mr. Cayetana Rubio, from whom I received the one hundred dollars on the draft from W. S. Parrot. I bought a horse for twenty dollars, in order to put part of the load that was on the mule my servant Hermann was riding, so as to travel faster, that I might overtake General Lemus, who had left the day previous. I bought a blanket for twenty realls. I went to the house of the commandant, General, to inquire for General Lemus, and in the office a person told me that he had left for Monterey on the twenty-third. All the streets leading to the public square were still fortified with bulwarks constructed during the siege. The city appeared to be growing. It could be, and some day will be, the depot for the produce of the neighboring country, for the commerce which will extend itself from Tampico by way of the river Panuco, and by a road from the highest navigable point on the river. A work which in a more civilized and favored country would be concluded in a year. But here it will be the work of many years, and perhaps of half a century. This cotton is here worth $30 a hundred, and in New Orleans $10. December 26th, 1833, B-Leagues. December 27th, La Borsilla-Nutracharcas-20-Leagues. December 28th, Guadalupe-Garnicero-16-Leagues. December 29th, Vanegas-15-Leagues. December 30th, Salado-14-Leagues. December 31st, Rancho-Jesus-Maria-15-Leagues. January 1st, 1834-Aguanueva-12-Leagues. January 2nd, Saltillo-3-9-Leagues. On January 3rd, 1834, I was arrested by General Lemus by orders from the Secretary of War dated in Mexico, 21st December, and of Part 1 of the Prison Journal of Stefan F. Austin from the Texas Historical Association Quarterly, Volume 2, Number 3, January 1899. Prison Journal of Stefan F. Austin, 1833-1835, Part 2 from the Texas Historical Association Quarterly, Volume 2, Number 3, January 1899. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The General treated me with the greatest attention and delicacy, for which I am and always will be grateful. On the 4th, we left Saltillo. I traveled in the coach with the General and his family. We slept at Los Muertos. The weather was very cold, the wind being very strong from the north. On the 5th, we arrived at La Rinconada. On the 6th, we arrived at Monterey. I was put in a very convenient and clean room with a guard at the door. My servant went out and came in when he pleased, and thus everything was furnished me. Nothing was wanted but liberty. On the 7th, Horatio Alisbury came to see me. I wrote to Don Luis de la Rosa, to Senator Rafael Yanos, to the Governor of the State of Cojila and Texas, to José María Viesca, to the Chief of the Department of Beixar, to Francisco Ruiz, to the Ayuntamiento of Austin, sending them, and to the Governor and to the Chief of the Department, a copy of the Answer of the Minister concerning the Petition of Texas to be a State. I sent a copy of my letter to the Ayuntamiento of Austin, to the Governor and to the Chief of Department. I wrote to Williams and to Perry and to D. W. Smith Maramoros. I sent him a demand against the Commissariat to collect 796.6 that Williams paid to the troops of Ugartecia and 57.3 belonging to James Ross, also a letter to D. J. Toller concerning the draft of Reynolds against Hubenstrich, instructing Smith to collect the whole of it and to send the first to Williams and the draft to W. S. Parrot in Mexico. Monterey, 20 January 1834. I drew on D. W. Smith for $100 of Maramoros, which I received from V. Blank for my expenses to Mexico and left on this day. We slept at Santa Catarina, 21st at los Muertos, the weather bad with rain and hail. 22nd at Saltillo, 23rd tanque de la vaca, 24th Ventasa, 25th Salado, 26th Vanegas, 27th Garloupe Cara, 28th Charcas, 29th Hidionda, 30th Garapata, 31st San Luis. February 1st, 1834 remained at San Luis. 2nd, Rodríguez, 3rd San Bartola, 4th Frankas, it rained the whole day. 5th, Atotoxilco, S-A River, 6th Cerritos, a Rancho, 7th Querétaro, 8th Ditto, 9th San Juan de Río, 10th Arroyo Seco, 11th Tula, 12th Guantitlan, 13th Mexico, where I was put in the Inquisition, shut up in the dark dungeon number 15, and not allowed communication with anyone. 14th February, 1834, I heard cannon which were fired at intervals all day as funeral honors to Guerrero, who was shot on the 14th February, 1831. 15th, The Visit of the Prison Today. I was permitted to walk with a sentinel in a yard alone to take exercise. I asked for books, but was not permitted to have any. In the dungeon number 15, Ex Inquisition, 18th February, 1834, Lieutenant Colonel José María Bermuda notified me that my judge and attorney general were appointed. He lives in Santa Ines Street, number 1. 19th, The Attorney came for me to sign an act. 20th, In order to understand the affairs of Texas and to explain them perfectly, it is only necessary to ascertain some very simple points. First, What means are most resorted to to move and influence the actions of mankind? It is interest. Second, Is it or not the interest of Texas to separate herself, even if she were at liberty to do so? No, certainly it is not. Is it or not the interest of the United States of the North to acquire Texas? It is not, because she would extend her territory too much. And what is worse, she would annex a large district which would have no interest in common with the rest of the Republic. All the rivers of Texas take their rise in Texas, at but little distance from each other, and do not enter the territories of the North, so as to form bonds of union, as does the river Mississippi with Louisiana and other states adjacent. There is no market in the North for the produce of Texas, and there is in Mexico. Texas is more distant from the city of Washington than from the city of Mexico. As regards the commerce with Europe, the Mexican flag is equal to that of the North. What then is the true interest of Texas? It is to have a local government to cement and strengthen its union with Mexico, instead of weakening or breaking it. What Texas wants is an organization of a local government, and it is of little consequence, whether it be part of Coahuila, or as a separate state or territory, provided the organization be a suitable one. She is at this time suffering in the departments of, first, justice, second, colonization, third, Indian, fourth, police, and internal improvements in fine in every department. 22nd February 1834, nothing more of the attorney since the 19th. What a horrible punishment is solitary confinement, shut up in a dungeon, with scarcely light enough to distinguish anything. If I were a criminal it would be another thing, but I am not one. I have been ensnared and precipitated, but my intentions were pure and correct. I desired to cement the union of Texas with Mexico, and to promote the welfare and advancement of my adopted country by populating the northern and eastern frontier. I have been impatient, and have allowed myself to be compromised and ensnared by the political events of last year, and by the excitement caused by them in Texas. I do not see how I could have avoided what has passed in Texas. My conscience acquits me of anything wrong, except impatience and imprudence. I am in no sense criminal. A public agent should sacrifice himself life and property should it become necessary in order to carry out the views of his constituents. I perhaps have followed this rule to an extreme. Sunday, 23rd February, 1838, footnote. This date is an evident slip of the copyist's pen and footnote. Philanthropy is but another name for trouble. I have labored with pure intentions to benefit others, and especially to advance and improve my adopted country, and what have I gained? Enemies, persecution, imprisonment, accused of ingratitude to Mexico, which is the most unjust of all accusations that can possibly be brought against me. If I have been ungrateful to anyone, it is to myself and family, for I have neglected my and their interests and happiness to labor for others. My poor sister, who removed to the wilderness of Texas with her large family, owing to my solicitations, and left a comfortable home and a large circle of warm and kind friends. My poor sister, how much is she now suffering on my account? How happy I could have been on a farm alongside of my brother-in-law, far from all the cares and difficulties that now surround me. But I thought it was my duty to obey the call of the people and go to Mexico as their agent. I have sacrificed myself to serve them, and in all probability the only return I shall receive will be abuse and ingratitude. It is horrible that I should have lived to find myself on the verge of misanthropy, soured and disgusted with mankind. My difficulties have proceeded from an excess of zeal to serve others, but I shall be culminated by them. Although I have loved the whole human family with the most unbounded enthusiasm and confidence, I have been impatient and consequently imprudent, but not criminal in anything. My conscience is clear, but that will not save me from calamity and misconstruction. Nature gave me too much sensibility and too yielding a disposition, too ready to listen to and be influenced by those who I believed were friends and honest men, and too sensible and tender at their censure and discontent. The heart of a public man should be made of cold and hard materials and not of the fine and delicate cords of sensibility. He should be impervious to momentary impulse, passion or impatience. I am naturally impatient and irritable. 23rd February, Mr. Bermudor came to notify me that my cause was taken from him and that he was no longer my attorney. I was visited by Padre Muldoon, who had with great difficulty obtained this privilege. He was allowed to speak to me only in Spanish and in presence of the commandant of the prison, manifesting his friendship, etc. I permitted him to make a bargain with some tavern keeper for my meals, which he did, and sent me wine and cheese. He promised to send me books. 24th I received my food according to Muldoon's promise, but no books. I supposed he had not been permitted to send them. Time drags on heavily. 25th the new Attorney General came to notify me of his appointment. He did not leave his name or residence. 26th February, 16, Dungeon Number 15, X Inquisition, San Domingo Street, a diagram. A, Yards, E, Entrance, B, Ditto, Small Circles, Staircases, P, Pilar or Fountain of Water, T, Trees in the Yard. The building behind the Yard, A, P, is one story high. All the rest is two stories. The walls of my cell, Number 15, have a number of figures of snakes, landscapes, etc., drawn by a prisoner of the Inquisition more than 60 years ago. 27th February, theory and practice have clearly demonstrated that the Mexican Republic will not make rapid progress until she has other exports than gold and silver, because these metals disappear immediately to pay for the imports, and what is worse, agriculture and the arts do not flourish. And a very many useful laborers without employment deliver themselves up to vices and to idleness. It is necessary to stimulate agriculture and the exportation of its products. On the coast, where the transportation to the ports is not distant or costly, nothing more is wanted but labor, population, and capital well directed in the cultivation of the land. In the interior, there is sufficient population, but without being well directed, and transportation is difficult and costly, as it always must be on backs of beasts, of burden, and until they improve and open roads for wagons instead of roads for mules, nature has pointed out the ports for exportation. Veracruz, Tampico, and Maramoros are the most important. There are but few navigable rivers, but up to this time no use or profit has been derived from those which are navigable. The river Alvarado is navigable for a considerable distance in the interior, and may be very useful for the exports of an extensive and fertile country. From the head of navigation on this river, wagon roads might be opened to the states of Puebla and Oaxaca, and the produce could be exported at a trifling expense to that which is paid at this time. Thus Alvarado would be a depot, and thence the produce would be carried to Veracruz by steamboats and schooners. The capability of this river for navigation is not yet known, and it is worthy the attention of government to send experienced engineers to examine and explore it, and also the best routes for carriage roads to the interior. The river Panuco is another which will one day be very important to the most interesting part of the Republic. It is, I say, worthy the earliest attention of the government to examine the capability of this river for navigation and the practicability of roads from the head of navigation to Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, and Mexico through the plains of Opam. With a good road to Querétaro, all the Bajío of the rich state of Guanajuato would have great facilities to export the products of agriculture. The Rio Grande is another important channel, and in time of high water would serve to export the produce as far as Chihuahua. In the south there is the river of Guaraqualco and of Tabasco, Navigable. Also on the coast of the Pacific there are some rivers which are navigable or susceptible of important improvements. The idea that the interior of Mexico is without resources for transportation to the coast is erroneous as experience will one day demonstrate. They ought to dedicate themselves to opening roads on McAdams' plan from Mexico to Veracruz from the same to Acapulco to San Luis Potosí through Querétaro to the head of navigation on Panuco River, and from that point to Querétaro and San Luis, extending the former to as far as Guadalajara and the latter to Zacatecas. Roads from the head of navigation on Alvarado River as far as Puebla and Oaxaca. All these roads should be carriage roads, and when finished they should proceed to open lateral roads to intersect the principal ones. A road from the ports of Texas to the Paso del Norte and New Mexico with the object of attracting the commerce of $2 million annually to the ports and territory of the Republic, which now comes from Missouri. This commerce would be a very strong chain to bind Texas to the Federation, and all the expenses, etc., abrogated by the merchants for the transportation of merchandise would be made to the Mexican territory and would result to the benefit of the Mexicans. March 2, 1834. I obtained today a book, a tale called Yes and No. Muldoon failed in his promise to send me books. I prefer bread and water with books to the best of eating without them. In a dungeon the mind and thoughts require element more than the body. March 4, $4 were paid to me for my support, the only money I have received since my entrance. 13, at half past 10 at night there was a very severe earthquake. March 15, at 6 in the morning an earthquake more severe than the other. March 16, Sunday. I received la historie de Felipe dois hoy de España, an unnaturalized brute, a devil, a monster, in fine as much as can be expressed or imagined of evil, of hypocrisy, and of cruelty. He was a blind, obedient, and faithful servant of Rome, that mother of executioners, assassins, robbers, and tyrants who have desolated the civilized world, filling it with mourning, terror, and ruin, and degrading mankind far below the level of brutes. A lion protects its offspring, but Philip II, Catholic king of Spain, is the executioner of his own son, the unfortunate Don Carlos, who was delivered by his most Christian father's own hands to the inquisitors and by these holy agents of Rome condemned to death. The brute of a father said to the inquisitors, quote, have no regard to the rank which the prince holds in the state, do your duty, and know that zeal for religion has stifled all paternal love in me, end quote. At the moment of signing the sentence of death against his son, he said, directing himself to God, quote, you know, Lord, I have no other motive than sustaining your interests and the glory of your holy name, end quote. Is it possible to believe that mankind have been able to look upon such beasts as the representatives of God on the earth, kings and rulers, executioners of innocent children, robbers, all by divine providence and to sustain the interests and glory of God? The massacre of St. Bartholome on the 24th August 1572 in France, in which more than 70,000 Frenchmen perished, treacherously assassinated by order of the king, Charles IX, was an act very worthy of Rome and very characteristic of the kind of piety which govern the councils of the conclave of St. Peter. People of Mexico, can you throw a glance at the history of Rome without feeling a pity for your ancestors and without shaking off at once that religious yoke which has held and to this day holds you enslaved? Can ye contemplate this edifice, this inquisition and call to your memories what has passed within its walls under the name of religion without shuddering at the past and making an effort in favor of religious toleration so that ye may secure your liberties and safety for the future? The inquisition was established in Mexico and in Lima by Philip II in 1573 and the first auto de fe in Mexico was in 1574. March 17th, I walked for half an hour in the court where they tell me the autos de fe were held, that is where they burned the unfortunate, whom policy or robbery assassinated under the name of religion. Fanaticism furnishes a cloak for everything and is the same with all nations and religions. Elizabeth, protestant queen of England, sacrificed her relation, Mary of Scotland, to prevent a Catholic sovereign ascending the throne and at the time of the unhappy queen's head being taken off they shouted, quote thus perish the enemies of the religion of Christ, end quote. All this was a cloak and nothing more because the crime of Mary consisted in being beautiful and beloved by everyone and Elizabeth made use of the cloak of religion and policy to cover her own envy and to gratify it. At the same time Philip II was kindling the fires of the autos de fe under the pretext of religion in order to rob and to sustain his despotic power. March 19th, for the national aggrandizement of the Mexican Republic are required, first religious toleration, second foreign emigration, third protection of agriculture in order to have a surplus of agricultural products so as to pay for importations and thus avoid the export of the entire products of the mines which at this time is leaving the country for the purchase of foreign merchandise, fourth the improvement of the navigation of all the rivers and the opening of carriage roads from the last navigable point on them to the interior, fifth the establishment of manufacturers but this ought to be the last step in the national progress. Manufacturers ought to be established after agriculture and with a dense population. Without these bases they can neither be useful nor profitable except by force of restrictions, privileges and monopolies which are always prejudicial to the people or the great mass of the nation. March 20th, this day I was notified by a person from the commandant general that I must return the twenty dollars that I had received because I ought to receive my daily allowance from another quarter but he did not say from what quarter or authority. I returned the twenty dollars, received March 4th, four dollars, 9th, four dollars, 12th, four dollars, 16th, four dollars, 20th, four dollars, total, 20 dollars. This day I also sent away my servant Medina and ceased to receive my meals from office. 22nd, Sergeant Augustine Gonzales presented himself in my dungeon on the part of the commandant of the place Don Domingo Sarmiento, requested the loan of thirty dollars which I lent to the said commandant. I also lent ten to the said Sergeant Gonzales. Expenses to Medina, four dollars, book, one dollar, barber, chili, zero point three and a half, 13th March, Medina, six, washerwoman, point three, 20th, Medina, five, 22nd, lent to the commandant, 30, lent to the Sergeant, ten. Brought forward from daily expenses to 26th March, 17.9 and one half, table and chair, two. From 26th March to 3rd April, six. Fourth April, I returned to the person who has paid me the twenty dollars which I had received from him. He awoke me from a profound sleep. April 4th, 1834, I received eighteen dollars from Don Vitor Blanco, lent. Expenses from 3rd to 11th April, four dollars, point seven. 11th April, I commenced receiving my breakfast and dinner from Mr. Offit, number seven, Tibur Seal Street. 12th April, it would be an injury to the United States of the North to unite Texas to themselves, or to see it made a state of the Mexican Federation. First, because it would be extending too much territory of that Republic, receiving within its limits a country which is entirely isolated from all the other states by its geographical situation and by all the interests of agriculture, manufacturers, and commerce. Second, because Texas as a state would flourish with rapidity and would extend the planting of cotton throughout that country, and thence along the whole coast of the Mexican Gulf, to so great a degree that it would tend to reduce the price of that product in the European markets. It would also extend the manufacture of cotton cloth. The evident result of this would be to injure all the states south of Virginia, whose chief produce and almost the only one which is valuable is cotton. The sugar and rice of the Mexican states on the Gulf of Mexico would also compete with the sugar of Louisiana and the rice of Georgia and Carolina. On the other hand, the progress of Texas would promote the power of the Mexican nation to a great degree by the increase of their physical force, their agriculture, their manufacturers, and of which is of more importance than all, their exports of produce, avoiding thereby the extraction of metals from the mines. The erection of Texas to a state of the Mexican Republic in a very few years would cause a moral change of the greatest importance in favor of the Mexican states and to the prejudice of the United States of the North and would even have an influence in the markets of Europe by reducing the price of cotton and by the gradual increase of manufactures in the Mexican territory. April 13th. In my first exploring trip in Texas in 1821, I had a very good old man with me who had been raised on the frontiers and was a first-rate hunter. We had not been many days in the wilderness before he told me, quote, you are too impatient to make a hunter, end quote, scarcely a day past that he did not say to me, quote, you are too impatient, you wish to go too fast. I was so once, but 50 years experience has learned me that there is nothing in this world like patience, end quote. Before my trip was ended, I saw the benefit of his maxim, and I determined to adopt it as a rule in settling the colony which I was then about to commence in Texas. Some have accused me of adhering to this rule and to a system of conciliation and mildness with too much obstinacy. I do not think I have, though perhaps I am not a competent judge. I can, however, say that I believe the greatest error I ever committed was in departing from that rule as I did in the city of Mexico in October 1833. I lost patience at the delays in getting the business of the people of Texas dispatched, and in a moment of impatience wrote an imprudent, and perhaps an intemperate letter to the Ayuntamiento of Beshar dated 2nd of October 1833. I can say with truth that a combination of circumstances occurred about that time to make me impatient, and my intentions were pure and patriotic as a Mexican citizen, for I had every reason to believe that the people of Texas would not suffer the month of November to pass without organizing a local government, and in that event it is very evident that it would have been much better to organize by a harmonious consultation of the respective local civil authorities of the municipalities called Ayuntamientos than by a popular commotion without the intervention of any recognized legal existing authority. The circumstances of the case and the purity of my motives are certainly worthy of consideration. Texas, when I left in 1833, was almost in a state of nature as to its local government. It was in danger of anarchy on the one hand, and of being destroyed by the uncivilized and hostile Indians on the other. These things oppressed me, and I may have lost patience. Quote, the inestimable value of the liberty of the press would not be known if it were not evident that with it nothing is to be feared from any arbitrary power. In quote, political evils of society are like bad habits in individuals, easy to cure in their birth or origin, but very difficult when they have taken deep root. The political evils of Texas are in their birth, and easy to cure by a proper organization of the local government. Quote, people in office do more wrong by the foolish things they say than by the foolish acts they commit, end quote. So said Theré, minister of Louis the 15th on the accession of Louis the 16th. The fable of Prometheus, whose heart was devoured every day by a vulture being renewed at night for the horrible feast of the day following, represents the imaginary sufferings of mankind. We arise in the morning filled with projects, desires, and occupations which destroy our felicity like the vulture eating the heart of Prometheus. At night we throw ourselves into bed tired out and miserable solely that our natures may recover strength to sustain the miseries of the following day. What madness, what folly it is to permit our thoughts to be converted into the vulture of Prometheus, how to avoid it, limiting ourselves to what is necessary, to what is substantial, and enjoying life as it comes, without thinking or troubling ourselves about that which we do not possess, or which does not concern us, nor about what may happen hereafter. Very well, according to this, man would become a being mentally torpid that would only exist to breathe, eat, and sleep, an animal. Well, what remedy is there then? The remedy is found in conducting ourselves justly, prudently, and rationally between an extreme of cares and an extreme of torpedoity. What rule is there to ascertain this? When we find ourselves restless and the head or passions excited for any project or idea to analyze it, applying to it these questions, is it just? Is it practicable? Is it necessary? What benefit will result to our fellow men or to ourselves? What may be the immediate or future consequences of it? Well, according to this, we should never act mentally or physically unless justice, reason, and judgment, previous examination, and mature analysis should qualify as just, practicable, necessary, etc., whatever we think of doing. And we should never act with impatience, impulse, or passion. Yes, so it is. And how many men act thus? Very few, perhaps none. Unfortunately, the duty and the acts of mankind in general are like the religion of Rome, in theory, divine, in practice, infernal. How can this be said of a religion whose foundation is perfect harmony, a union of principles and of action? Because the history and conduct of Rome demonstrate it, from the time her first bishop usurped from the other bishops the right of governing their respective dioceses as to spiritual matters, the power of the Pope originated from usurpation and not from divine creation, and in order not to deviate from the principles of its origin, the Pontiffs have gone on usurping and robbing from that time to the present, adding temporal or regal powers as if it were possible that God, or divine and spiritual things, could be divine, perfect, pure, and immortal, and at the same time human, imperfect, corrupt, tangible, sensual, and mortal, thus uniting a contradiction which is palpable, monstrous, and subversive to the foundation of the religion of Christ, which foundation is purity. How can purity exist in unity with the passions, interests, and corruptions of temporal or human things? That which is pure, perfect, and immortal cannot be united with that which is impure, imperfect, and mortal, and form a compound body, thing, or essence, without changing its nature or original principles, as for example white cannot be mixed with black and always remain white. Nevertheless mankind have seen the pure white of the religion of Christ, mixed by Rome with the black passions and human things without being aware that in this union the white has disappeared and the black has predominated. What blindness, what prejudice, what ignorance, those who are in favor of religious intolerance and of the temporal power of the clergy have not analyzed their thoughts by the rule before mentioned, nor by any other rule except that of their private interest of despotism, injustice, robbery, and usurpation, or by ignorance unworthy of civilized men. In the dungeon 20th April 1834, footnote, this date evidently refers back in footnote. April 26th 1834, I obtained two volumes of the uvra de plato traduit pour victor cousin. 27th April political philosophy, the people, or I should say the patriots of Mexico, conceived, put in execution, and are perfecting the most difficult grand and noble work which has been known or seen in the world since the days of Adam, the establishment of a system of government, popular, liberal, and free in a country where the customs and opinions of the people are diametrically opposed and repugnant to such a system, a work more worthy divine power than of human debility. Political writers have set it down as a dogma or axiom that in the formation of governments a natural course of things should be followed. What they call the natural course of things is that government should be constructed according to the customs, prejudices, and existing ideas of the great mass of the people, and that it would be unnatural, forcible, and dangerous to attempt to regulate or accommodate these customs, prejudices, and ideas to a system to which the people are repugnant and opposed. Up to this time we have seen mankind who had to organize themselves, follow the natural course spoken of by the political writers and philosophers, and Mexico alone has the glory of having demonstrated the contrary, and of proving that the genuine principles of liberty and of truth are of divine origin, and as such are stronger than the customs and erroneous ideas which are of human origin, and therefore that the first principles are of more value even in the abstract than the second notwithstanding the last are rooted and fortified by the practice of centuries. The United States of the North have the glory of having demonstrated the practicability and advantage of a popular system for a people whose customs and opinions were prepared beforehand for that system. This was a grand step which excited the admiration of the civilized world and caused the thrones and gothic institutions of Europe to tremble. Mexico has the glory of having done much more, and has gone beyond the people of the North, in having demonstrated that the principles of truth and liberty in the abstract or of themselves are essentially more strong than the prejudices and erroneous customs and that the latter may be destroyed notwithstanding the force which they derive from the practice of centuries or from the veneration which their great antiquity may attract for them. What a flattering lesson is this for oppressed nations and how fearful a one for the tyrants of Europe. They, with the Pope, falsely called the most holy at their head, sustained that their power is of divine origin and that it is necessary to exercise it on the people because they cannot govern themselves. It may be, as some say, because they are naturally degraded and cannot pass above the level of slaves, or it may be, as others say, because their manners and customs are so bad that they cannot enjoy freedom without injury to themselves like children with a pen knife. Mexico answers this, denying that despotism and usurpation have such a divine origin. On the contrary, that their origin is human and therefore must yield to that which is truly divine or to principles of liberty and truth. These principles find a sympathy, a reception, and a natural and instinctive or spontaneous protection in that part of man which has equally a divine origin, that is to say, in the soul, because both spring from the same source which is divine and consequently stronger than human inventions and things and must prevail. If this power of kings and of other despots is of divine origin, it should not perish or be weakened because otherwise we must admit that the works of providence are mortal and perishable. Today Padre Moldún came to visit me by permission of President Santa Ana, and so I knew that the President had returned to Mexico six days ago. I did not know it before. I know nothing of what passes outside. No one is allowed to speak to me, nor am I with anybody. I am incomunicadísimo. What a system of jurisprudence is this of confining those accused or suspected without permitting them to take any steps to make manifest their innocence or to procure proofs for their trial. They can neither consult with counsel, lawyer, friend, or anybody. I do not know of what I am accused. How can I prepare my defense? Perhaps I will have to send to Texas for proofs of my innocence. How can I do so being shut up and incommunicated? This system may be in conformity with law, but I am ignorant of which law or of what rights the party accused has. But it is very certain that such a system is in no wise in conformity with justice, reason, or common sense. Mail from Nagadoches to River Sabine at Gaines Ferry every two weeks, 20 leagues distant. This mail ought to arrive from the Sabine at Nagadoches the day before the mail leaves that place for Beshar. I recommend James Gaines as postmaster on the Sabine. He is a Mexican citizen since the year 1820, married to a Mexican and understands the English and Spanish languages and has a house and property on the river Sabine sufficient to live with comfort. The mail from the U.S. of the North arrives at the Sabine in front of Gaines House so that it will be very easy to change the correspondence at that point, and so establish a communication by mail from all places in Mexico with every place in the United States of the North. For the said exchange all that is necessary is that the government of the North should be advised through their charge here of the desire of this government to change the correspondence on the Sabine. The postage on letters and papers on each side should be paid to the line and after passing should pay such postage as is required by the laws of the respective republics. And of Prison Journal of Stefan F. Austin 1833, 1835, Part 2 from the Texas Historical Association Quarterly, Volume 2, Number 3, January 1899. Read for LibriVox by Sue Anderson. The public schools of today by Mary H. Northend. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. To one not in touch with the methods of the modern public school, a visit to one of the least progressive of them is a revelation. From the earliest grade to the finished product of the high school, everything tends to an all-around development. Even in the kindergarten, the fact is demonstrated. A child recently asked by a benevolent elderly lady if he had mastered his alphabet, fixed an utterly uncomprehending eye upon her, looking as nearly blank as it is possible for an up-to-date kindergarten child to look. Instead of the alphabet, which was considered the first proper mental food for young children in those dim and unenlightened days of which we ourselves are a product, one's first taste of education in these days, may we say, is a lesson inspiring patriotism by the following game. The children are formed into two lines. A street, while a company of children, waving flags and led by a captain, march impressively down the street to inspiring music in the cheers of an excited populace. Or one's first impressions may be along some other line of thought similarly developed. The morning talks by the teacher on pertinent subjects keep these children informed on subjects of which their parents, in some cases, have ideas decidedly misty. Art, too, has its place in these early years. Drawing from life models, the model generally being one of the children is popular. The results in almost all instances, while naturally crude, show clearly the thought conveyed by the pose of the child model. In many schools, sewing is taught as one of the regular studies. Beautiful specimens of embroidery and drawn work are exhibited as the work of the children. In the tenement districts, the teaching of these branches enables the child, even at a tender age, to do much toward helping the overworked and often ignorant mother to clothe decently a large family. The proper cooking of food is also taught and is of inestimable value, particularly in these same tenement districts. The proper ventilation of a room, with the care and making of a bed, and in some cases, simple lessons in nursing are doing much to bring before parents as well as children the necessary laws of health and hygiene. Physical culture is taught almost from the time the pupil enters school, with simple exercises at first up to the well-equipped high school gymnasium from which the pupil, if he has made the most of his opportunities, may emerge erect, with good red blood coursing through his veins. For the girl, the introduction of basketball teams has done much, giving her a taste for the more energetic and stimulating exercises of her brother. These, with the ball teams for the boys, do much in the interscholastic games to promote loyalty to and pride in one's own school. Gardening too has been introduced even into some city schools, where small tracks of unused land are being tilled by the children. Each child is given a small plot on which he may raise his own particular choice of crop. Manual training is exceedingly popular, not only with the boys, but with the girls, and it is no unusual sight to see a girl enveloped in a pinafore working at the carpenter's bench. Small articles such as picture frames, stools, tabarets, etc., and even articles of furniture, beautifully and solidly made, are turned out by these same girls. In some cases, such taste and skill have been acquired in this work, that it has been continued after the pupil's graduation, one girl making herself an entire set of bedroom furniture. By the time one has completed a high school course, he is accomplished much in the way of art. He is able to draw credibly from the cast and can do color work from the natural flower, besides designing wallpapers, book covers, and other useful objects. Parography has also become popular, the pupil making his own designs for burning. Work in wood, copper, and brass, the latter being hammered into dishes, buckles, and brooches, burnt and towed leather, are some of the things included in the study of the arts and crafts. Music, too, has its place. Songs are taught the pupil at the outset of his school career. By the time the pupil leaves the grammar school, he is able to sing credibly intricate part songs with the knowledge of the theory of music. Really difficult music is undertaken in the high school. In some instances, entire oratorios are given by the pupils. Many schools maintain their own orchestra, some of them numbering 20 or more pieces. The instruments are played by the pupils who lead in the marching. In some cases, concerts have been given, netting respectable sums for the school. Occasionally, in the lowest grades, the pupils are allowed to bring from home their toy trumpets, drums, clappers, and other instruments in form and orchestra, led by one of their number. This develops a sense of rhythm, if not of harmony. Fortunately at that age, one's lungs are not robust. One may graduate from a high school fully equipped to enter the business world. Typewriting and stenography are thoroughly taught so that a course in these branches at a business college is no longer necessary. A well equipped bank is maintained in some schools where by actual experience, the pupil learns all that is necessary to handle properly and care for such property as he may later acquire. The teaching of good citizenship is taking its place in our schools. A proposition of much benefit to the schools of a certain city was defeated by the ignorant element of the city's voters, bringing before the people the need of more intelligent citizenship. Out of this group, what is known as the school city, an organization of the pupils into a city form of government. Elections are held at which the citizens elect their mayor, judge, and other officers, the citizens being responsible for good order. While the pupil is keeping up the ordinary branches of study, he is able to bring to the acquisition of these hard facts, a mind broadened and stimulated by his work along the lines mentioned. And of the public schools of today, primary H Northend. Read by Betty B. The Siege of Nice. From history of the Crusades, comprising the rise, progress, and results of the various extraordinary European expeditions for the recovery of the Holy Land from the Saracens and Turks by George Proctor. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mike Overby, Midland Washington. Before the arrival of the provincial forces, all the other great divisions of the Crusading levies had already completed their junction on the Plains of Asia Minor, and their wants, rather than their strength, had been increased by the wretched remnants of the preceding mob who, with Peter the Hermit himself, had, in recovered confidence, found their way from various places of refuge to the general muster. The enormous numbers of the congregated hosts of Christendom can be estimated with little hope of precision, either from the tumid metaphors of the Grecian princes, who has described their desolating course, or from the positive assertions of the Latin writers, whose ignorance of military affairs might easily mislead their computations, and whose astonishment at the view of so prodigious an array was sure to be vented in exaggeration. If we were to credit some of our usual authorities, six or seven hundred thousand warriors were present in arms, besides an innumerable multitude of ecclesiastics, women, and children. But the report of the same party in other places, and every evidence of reason and probability, are alike inconsistent with this conclusion. It may be suspected that the leaders of the war were themselves unable to ascertain the real numbers of the disorderly herd of a regular infantry, and we can rely with safety, only on the statement of the most judicious chronicler of the crusade, that the mailed cavalry, which, according to the rude tactics of the Middle Ages, formed the nerve of armies, amounted to one hundred thousand men. This superb body of heavy horse was composed of the flower of the European chivalry, knights, esquires, and their attendant men-at-arms completely equipped with the helmet and shield, the coat and boots of chain and scale armor, the lance and the sword, the battle axe, and the ponderous mace of iron. The crowd of footmen fought principally with the long and crossbow, and were used indifferently as occasion required for archers, scouts, and pioneers. But their half-armed and motley condition formed a miserable contrast to the splendor of the chivalric army, which glittered in the brazenry of embroidered and ermined circuits, shields and headpieces inlaid with gems and gold, and banners and pennons, distinguishing the princely and noble rank of chieftains and knights. From their first camp on the Asiatic shores of Bosphorus, the advance of the Christian hosts in bold disregard of minor objects of attack was immediately directed against Nice, the capital of the Sultan of Room, situated in a fertile plain on the direct route to Jerusalem. Resting on the waters of the lake Ascanius, the defensive capabilities of that city had been sedulously improved by art. It was surrounded by a double wall of stupendous height and thickness, provided with a deep ditch and flanked at intervals by no less than three hundred and seventy towers, its garrison was numerous and brave, and the Sultan's soly man, or Kiludij Arslan, who had retired to the neighboring mountains with his Turkish cavalry, preserving his communication with the place by the lake might with equal facility reinforce his defenders and harass the quarters of the besiegers. Nothing deterred by these difficulties, the crusaders on their arrival before the city undertook the siege with an energy suitable to the obstinacy which was anticipated in the defense. Not with standing the numbers, the immense circumference of the walls prevented a complete investment, but each independent leader, successively encamping on the first quarter which he found unoccupied, from thence directed and prosecuted his attacks. Contrary to the impressions which later historians have sometimes given, that a chief authority over the crusading hosts was conceded to Duke Godfrey, it is here observable that no trace of such recognition of supremacy can be discovered in the narrative of contemporary chroniclers. The general plan of operations was sometimes debated and determined in a council of princes, but the details and choice of execution were abandoned to the uncontrollable will of the different chieftains and their respective followers, who were alike too proud of personal rank and too jealous of national distinctions to brook any submission to a foreign command. But the same feelings which were repugnant to all subordination and unity of action, in a great degree supplied their want with a generous emulation of glory, and in the Liga of Nice the Latin princes contended with rival valor and industry who should be foremost in urging his approaches to the wall. On the northern side were encamped Duke Godfrey and his renish and German division, eastward extended the quarters of the counts of Vermandois and Chart, and the two Roberts with the French, Norman, English and Flemish crusaders. On the same front the provincial and Italian host of the Count of Toulouse took up a continued alignment, and towards the south the city was enclosed by the troops of Bimond and Tancrede. Two thousand men who had attended the march of the crusaders under Tataeus as imperial lieutenant were the only Byzantine forces in the Confederate camp. From their respective quarters each of these divisions pushed forward its attacks with all the mechanical expedience which the Middle Ages had imperfectly preserved out of the martial science of classical antiquity. Among the principal machines of the besiegers were lofty wooden towers of several stories termed Belfredi and Belfra, which were moved forward on rollers and wheels, protected against conflagration by coverings of boiled hides, filled with archers to dislodge the defenders from the ramparts and supplied with drawbridges which, on a nearer approach, being let down upon the walls, afforded a passage for the knights and their followers to rush the assault. The advance of these Belfra was sometime preceded, the road leveled, and the ditch of the fortress filled up by means of a movable gallery or shed of similar materials, but lower structure, called indifferently a fox or cat, or chacheteal, when surmounted also by a tower. Under cover of these galleries the walls could either be undermined by the slow operation of the sap, or breached by the violent blows of the battering ram. Ballistic engines of various sizes and denominations for hurling masses of rock, beams of tinder, stones, and darts, composed the ordinary artillery, both of the assailants and besieged, and the most effectual means of defense were afforded by the use of the Greek fire in destroying the hostile machines. The mechanical operations of the crusaders were for a while arrested by the gallant efforts of the Sultan of Ruhm, who, descending from the mountains which overhang the plain of Nice, with a swarm of fifty thousand horse, endeavored by a sudden and impetuous attack with the assistance of the garrison to overpower the eastern camp of the Christians. But his hope of surprising their quarters was frustrated by the capture of the messengers who were entrusted to convey his purpose to the city. He everywhere encountered a determined resistance and a bloody repulse, and his first experience of the valor of the western Christians compelled him to abandon Nice to its fate. The defense of the city was not the last resolutely maintained, and the attempts of the besiegers to breach the walls were repeatedly foiled. Their projectile engines disabled, and their towers and galleries crushed by fragments of rock or burnt by the Greek fire. Some weeks had already been consumed in fruitless labor and slaughter, when the position of the city on the lake Ascanius suggested to the besiegers a more successful expedient. At their desire, Alexios caused a number of small vessels to be prepared in his arsenals, transported over land and launched upon the lake. This flotilla, manned by seamen and archers in the imperial pay, ensured the command of the lake, alarmed the city on that side with desultory attacks, and, intercepting all its communication by water with the exterior country, completed the investment of the place. Meanwhile, the besiegers continued their works with renewed spirit. The veteran Count of the Luz, whose approaches had been conducted with most skill and pertenacity, at length succeeded, by the science of a Lombard engineer, in attaching with safety a chachatil, or castellated gallery, to one of the towers of the city, which had been injured in a former siege and was bent forward from its base. The miners of the besiegers propped the super incumbent mass with strong timbers, while they loosened the foundations, and the supports being then fired, the whole fell with a tremendous crash and left a yawning breach. But instead of seizing the first moment of consternation by which the garrison were paralyzed, the provincials imprudently delayed the assault until the following morning, and an artful Greek contrived in the interval to rob them of the fruits of success. The wife and sister of the sultan, whom he had left in the city until this moment, endeavored on the first alarm to escape over the lake, then they were captured by the imperial flotilla. And Budemite, its commander, immediately offered not only their honorable release, but protection to the people of Nice against the fury of the Latins, if the city were surrendered to his master. The now despairing inhabitants accepted his terms. The troops of the flotilla disembarking were admitted into the city, and when the crusaders, with the returning day, were prepared to mount the breach of the fallen tower, the first spectacle which they beheld was the imperial banner floating on its walls. 20th of June, 1097. In their wounded pride and disappointed cupidity at being thus cheated of the honor and spoils of victory, the first impulse of the crusaders was to continue the assault. But a prudential consideration of the ulterior objects of the war induced their princes to stifle their own emotions of disgust at the artifice of Alexius, or as lieutenant, and to appease the louder resentment of their followers. And after a few days of repose, the whole crusading host, breaking up from the camp before Nice, pursued the destined route toward Jerusalem. End of The Siege of Nice by George Proctor